Author: lleonardbw

That’s Amaurys News and Commentary: U.S. will have the largest audience for game on Tuesday

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

You can expect it on Tuesday the largest crowd ever to watch soccer in the United States when team USA faces team Belguim. I’m not much of a soccer enthusiast but this game is the greatest game in the world with the largest audiences watching the World Cup everyday. These games when it’s done will draw crowds larger than the Super Bowl, World Series, Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Championship or even the Olympics.

The U.S. team is doing very well with the opportunity to advance in this do or die part of the World Cup inspite of losing to Ghana in a 2-2 tie and losing to Germany 1-0 the U.S. survived to play another day. The game for Tuesday will be a very good game for this country particularily if they can win it.

Team U.S.can try to keep on advancing and we’re not sure how far their going to make it, Germany, Brazil, France and Holland has a good teams. We’ll see it’s great that the interest in the United States is terrific Mexico got eliminated and if the U.S. could go all the way that would be a real, real story, I don’t think they will but that would be a great story.

It’s good thing that the U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann said “we could not win” every country except the U.S. is a very passionate and very nationalist in this sport. If your a coach and you tell your country “were not going to win” their going to fire you. So that was his strategy to motivate his players he wants to be under the radar and no one expects the U.S.to do much.

This is not a soccer country people follow baseball more than soccer, we haven’t had really no huge names and Landon Donavon is the biggest name who didn’t make the team for this World Cup and has scored 50 goals internationally. So my point being the game is not a tradition in this country. If the U.S. keeps playing well and they recruit more people than interest in this counrty will grow.

Like I mentioned before this is a very nationalistic and very prideful game, you have your team playing and your national anthem is being played, their holding these games in the Estadio do Maracana in Rio de Janiero which is the largest stadium in Brazil that seats 200,000 fans and it’s the largest sporting event.

So with these huge crowds in Rio, large audiences watching by the millions all over the world, their is a lot of nationalistic fever and when you respresent your country. I have written and spoken about this, a lot of these countries for example Brazil, that’s all they do is play soccer. That’s like in Cuba it’s baseball, Puerto Rico and the Dominican it’s baseball.

In Brazil it’s 100 percent soccer and in Columbia their doing very well in the northern part of Columbia they play a lot of baseball and in Venezuela it’s all baseball. When you get deep into South America Bolivia, Chile who was eliminated recently not to mention Argentina a big soccer country and Brazil which is the biggest you have all these countries who put all their marbles in one basket.

The game with the U.S. and Belguim could be one for the ages it should be a good one.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for Angels baseball and does News and Commentary for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Is Athletics 2014 season commanded by a higher power?

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

MIAMI–It seems the Oakland Athletics, who today have the best record in baseball with 51 wins, cannot do much wrong this season. Case in point, they just brought up from Sacramento Nate Freiman, who flew all night from Sacramento, California, to Miami, Florida and on Sunday, with just a few hours of sleep, hits a 3-run home run, which proves to be the decisive blow in their 4-3 victory and a sweep over the Miami Marlins.

How many teams today, could lose two of their five starting pitchers on their rotation (the A’s lost pitchers Jarrod Parker and A.J Griffin) plus their closer Jim Johnson, who during the past two seasons saved 101 games for the Orioles in relief, and still have this record?(Johnson is not hurt, but early lost his job as closer)
Baseball is a funny game.

The way this season has developed so far(and I say so far, because the Giants were also flying high and just lost a 9.5. game lead to the Dodgers in the past 21 days). Definitely it looks like there is some celestial influence going on here.

Now, I do not mean to take away any credit from A’s manager Bob Melvin, who could win his second Manager of the Year honors with the Athletics, and his third overall, but let’s get real here.

The A’s have been playing with three catchers, Norris behind the plate, Vogt in right field and Jaso as the DH and still winning, their the only team today that has used three catchers regularly in the same lineups.

The A’s open a three game series in Detroit Monday, the last time they will play the Tigers during the regular season, and a very possible preview of what it could be another clash between these two teams during this postseason.

Here is a surprise to a lot of people. When people think about the Oakland Athletics, they think of a team filled with rookies. Well, did you know the A’s are the only team in the majors this season that to this date they have not used a rookie on their roster?

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for A’s baseball and does News and Commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Warriors Mission Bay arena: Real Estate occupancy at 99 percent in Mission Bay neighborhood

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by Jerry Feitelberg

SAN FRANCISCO–The Mission Bay properties for housing in recent developments are going like hotcakes and no wonder the rents in the city are being driven by the high tech firms purchasing of land and real estate developing condos and the future home of the Golden State Warriors is no different. You can only imagine what it’ll be like once the arena is completed.

Bio tech developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities had built out over one million square feet of property space that is already tenant occupied at a rate of 99 percent. There are 5,000 units that Alexandria is still constructing before the gap is filled in and you can best bet that these units are already spoken for. As it turned out this might be a better or equally good investment than where the Warriors originally wanted to build their new arena at Piers 30-32.

Mission Bay is showing tremendous growth and development for housing at nearly 100 percent and the Warriors who purchased Mission Bay land from Salesforce, once the new arena is developed the Warriors plan on adding retail, hotels, and condos the latter three are designed to off set the costs of building the arena.

The Warriors designs for the new arena will seat 18,000 and will be on 12 acres of property owned by the team, the Warriors have not selected an architect yet but in the selection process the team is reportedly consulting with other NBA teams about architects who designed their buildings. There is no question the Warriors want a state of the art building that is futuristic above other NBA arenas.

Sources also say the Warriors are considering installing an NHL regulation ice at the new arena. The San Jose Sharks’ CEO John Tortara this month said that the team would explore the possibility of moving out of SAP Center in downtown San Jose and build their own arena. The Sharks are considering Santa Clara and being next to the 49ers. If that deal doesn’t work out the Warriors could share the Mission Bay facility with the Sharks and make the arena NHL campatible.

The Mission Bay development still is hitting record levels for development for businesses too as just three blocks away from the arena site Kilroy Reality Co whose had a lot of success with development in the Mission Bay too said they are planning to build a $450 million R & D project for offices that include a 12 story building at 680,000 square feet.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering arena developments of the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Sac Kings downtown arena: Additional lawsuit could cog the Kings construction schedule

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by Jerry Feitelberg

SACRAMENTO–If things weren’t complicated with three citizens filing an evironmental and private subsidy complaint against the City of Sacramento to block the Sacramento Kings new arena at Downtown Plaza which is bad news for the Kings construction schedule. Another group has filed a lawsuit on Thursday, the group Sacramento Coalition for Shared Properity says that the city and the Kings are responsible for affordable housing and assisting small businesses who could be forced out by the Kings new arena.

Shared Prosperity said in a news release on Thursday that the Kings did not “diclose analyze or mitigate impacts to local street traffic, air quality and climate change” those studies according to the group were not set up when the arena blueprints were created at downtown plaza. Shared Prosperity also says that the city and the Kings are responsible for “the impact of the health and safety of low income residents.”

Shared Prosperity said that they are not trying to stop the construction of the $477 million arena but they request in the lawsuit that the Kings adress solutions on affordable housing, low income residents, consider local street traffic and air quality. The Kings biggest fear of these two lastest lawsuits is the delay in meeting their deadline set by the NBA by having the arena finished by 2017.

The 2017 deadline is expected to be met or the NBA will relocate the franchise, the arena project could face a legal challenge that could stall construction that is scheduled to start at downtown plaza for demolition in late July. The other fear by the city is the judge in the case could order the city to make it clear as to how downtown infrastructure, air quailty, and other specific environmental impacts are met prior to any groundbreaking at the plaza.

To make matters worse for the Kings and the city’s concerns of making the schedule the coalition has also been joined by the Sacramento Housing Alliance and the Environmental Council of Sacramento in the suit. The groups are asking the city and the Kings to start a fund that will commit $40 million to affordable housing and have monies set aside for small businesses who might be affected by street changes, neighborhood construction, temporary moves due to construction, and assurances that they will be able to continue to do business in the Downtown Plaza neighborhood.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments for the Sacramento Kings and the Golden State Warriors for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Warriors draft report: 2012 picks compensates for W’s not making any picks in the draft

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by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–The Golden State Warriors who did make a draft selection on Thursday said they’re confident with who they selected back in the 2012 draft. In that draft they had a four player selection and feel that it should hold with those young players inspite of not selecting any players this year, “We’re pretty good at making our lives exciting, but we couldn’t do it tonight” said Warriors general manager Bob Woodward.

The Warriors who spent $3.2 million in trades said they were capped out during the fiscal trade period and that parting with a player would have been their only other choice during the draft something that Woodward wasn’t prepared to do. Thus the team for the first time ever did not select a player in the draft.

The Warriors are one of the more involved teams in the NBA at this time of the year had a fairly quiet selection at the draft on Thursday. Costs played a part in the top 11 draft picks in contract signing however it was reported had the draft selection went past number 12 and went to 13 the Warriors who were hoping that Doug McDermott would drop to the 13 or below in the selections would have changed that picture.

Nothing doing as McDermott went to number 11 and was selected by the Denver Nuggets and was traded to the Chicago Bulls. The Kings during the draft kept active selecting Nik Stauskas. In recent weeks the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Warriors have kept active in keeping their eye on Kevin Love. Love might have been a Warrior if the Warriors had been able to obtain either Stauskas or McDermott and trade for him.

Since there was no deal the Warriors walked out of the draft empty handed but again don’t feel slighted as they are satisfied with their past selections from drafts since 2012. NBA sources who are following the Warriors and Kevin Love situation said that a deal still is not impossible. The Warriors are still very interested in Love and the Timberwolves still expressed interest in forward David Lee and guard Klay Thompson but the Warriors didn’t want to take back Kevin Martin and $21 million that Martin has left on his contract.

There is some talks left the other option is that Love finish out his last season with the T-Wolves this year and become a free agent and tell the T-Wolves that he will not sign with them for 2015-16. Right now Golden State is $11-12 million under the luxury tax. With the July free agency approaching the Warriors can look at offers in the $5.3 million to $9.8 million range. The traded-player-exception expires on July 10th.

David Zizmor covers the NBA for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Sac Kings arena at the Plaza: Opposition builds up a frenzy against arena, claims of unethical financing

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by Jerry Feitelberg

SACRAMENTO–With $255 million approved for funding by the City of Sacramento for the Sacramento Kings new arena lawyers opposed to the new arena due to environmental and housing issues and accusations of the city making funding possible by private susidies. Attorneys representing three citizens Patrick Soluri and Jeffery Anderson are working on blocking the Kings new arena which is scheduled to go under construction at the Downtown Plaza.

The city plans to spend upwards to $755,000 to defend itself against the suit that says that the appropiration of the funds to be spent by the city on the arena were done in a back room deal and that the funding transaction was not tranparent as the city and Kings are spending $477 million for the new Kings digs at the Downtown Plaza.

The suit was filed but a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled that the lawsuit didn’t have merrit because a preliminary term sheet was approved last year by the city council when working on the financing plan. Soluri and Anderson readjusted the suit and adding a $255 million contribution which had been approved from the council and that difference allowed for the amendment.

The suit says that the parking lot properties in Sacramento were not listed as gifts when Soluri and Anderson said that the city’s proposal is fraud and they are asking the court to block the construction of the Kings arena. The city has argued in their previous appearence in court that the value of the garage property is worth almost nothing.

The city also argued that the parking properties need extensive upgrade improvements and the city had made it clear to the public that the garage and other particulars of the agreement was made to the public through public meetings and the media.

The city has hired the law firm Myers Nave to defend the city against the suit, funding for the law suit would come out of the city’s general funds. The city so far has dropped some $500,000 already fighting the three citizens in legal fees, represented by Soluri and Anderson. With the additional $755,000 that will bring that figure up to over $1.2 milllion fighting the arena opposition all out of the general fund.

Sacramento Coucilman Jay Schenirer said that the city is already bleeding red ink and this is money that should be going to other city departments that badly need funding rather than fighting arena opponents in court, “it’s $750,000 that we cannot spend on police, that we cannot spend on community centers and cannot spend on providing services for young people, all of which should be our priorities.” said Schenirer.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments for the Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Thats Amaury’s News and Commentary: Anticipation building for what could be U.S.’ biggest soccer game in history

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

ANAHEIM–The U.S. in the World Cup gets an opportunity to try and move up to the next level on Thursday with Germany. They got some competition against Germany and the U.S. has played very well. They played Portuagal to a 2-2 loss on Sunday but they have a opportunity to be the best team in the history of the United States as a soccer team as we know it today.

With the U.S. not considered a soccer country that’s changing as the U.S. team is now playing with the best of them in Brazil’s house. There are many power house teams here and the ratings for ESPN for the World Cup has been huge. Eventually the U.S. can be the team to beat someday and it’s going to be a battle for the U.S. on Thursday and it’ll be fun for the fans watching.

The Brazilians are so far the favorite and they beat Cameroon convincingly 4-1 and they’re picked to finish on top. Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico those are powerhouses and when we mention Brazil there’s no doubt that the critics know what they can do. I was at the World Cup in 1994 and it was one of the highlights of my career so when you talk about Brazil that’s the ultimate soccer country of the world.

SF Giants and their struggles: The Giants do have a good nucleolus of pitching but their pitching is not what it was earlier this season. They have a lot of problems and their on a slide right now losing ten of their last 13 games. The Dodgers are going to go heavy and get some help be it pitching or in the line up and close the gap on the Giants.

Needless to say the Giants have hit a really rough patch and they have a number of injured players and the pitching is suspect and the hitting at times is non existent. The Giants are really having some problems and Giant pitcher Matt Cain got shelled on Monday night by the lackluster Padres offense in a 6-0 loss to drop his record to 1-6.

Cain’s problems are a combination of factors, he said after the game on Monday night that he feels fine but the losses mount, Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum is having his own struggles at 5-5 with an ERA of 4.90 Lincecum has lost two of his last four games.

Giants rookie second baseman Joe Panik who debuted on Sunday in Arizona with two hits is impressing the club with his glove and his keystone partner at shortstop Brandon Crawford says he’s got some fine tuning needed but he’s going to do just fine, “There may have been a few things he needed to work on, but he’s a good athlete. He adjusted pretty quickly.”

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish TV voice for the Los Angeles Angels and does News and Commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Michael Duca on A’s and Giants: No quit A’s keep rolling against some of baseball’s best;Everytime Mad Bum comes out he brings that no hitter feel

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by Michael Duca

Oakland A’s update: The Oakland A’s relief pitching was really solid all the way through the entire series against the Boston Red Sox over the weekend. As A’s manager Bob Melvin said before Sunday’s game the players don’t quit and if their seemingly out of a game and their down 6-1 in the eighth inning they still don’t think their out of the game and Sunday they weren’t.

Major League players, coaches and managers would never admit to being blown away even if they are, this season still has 100 games to run almost 90 games to run anyway. They are impressed with the way the A’s play, they’ve got a bunch of guys that aren’t well known outside of Oakland.

The A’s seem to perform in a variety of circumstances, Sunday in the tenth inning they had to give up the designated hitter because one of their catchers took another knock to the noggin on a back swing. Sooner or later their going to have to take a hard look at whether or not they have to start telling players to limit their back swings because a 360 degree back swing is just flat out dangerous and it doesn’t accomplish anything but it certainly endangers catchers.

They wound up giving up the DH and the pitchers spot was going to hit in the tenth inning and the A’s went to Sean Doolittle as their hitter and he made the last out of the game and Doolittle is a guy who as recently as four years ago counting A ball and fall league had impressive seasons. The A’s have versatility almost everywhere you look.

San Francisco Giants update: Giants pitcher Madison Baumgarner is the staff ace you aticipate him having no hit stuff everytime he goes out to the mound. His only rival is a left handed starter in the National League and that’s the Dodgers Clayton Kershaw. Baumgarner and Kernshaw are similar guys, they’re country kids with probably not the prettiest beards in the world. Their hard throwing lefties that can easily strike out ten, 12, or 13 guys on any given night he’s been absolutely rock steady and that’s what you expect from your staff ace.Baumgarner is working hard, he works quickly he throws to contact, he’s willing to trust his defense because he works quickly his defense is trustworthy.

The Giants Joe Panik had two hits in his first Major League start Sunday night at Chase Field and also did a fine job with the glove in his debut. Panik is a nice looking young player but people shouldn’t put too many expectations on him. I don’t want him to get too tied up in the structure in the pressure of this pennant race.

If Panik is able to do what a rookie is able to do which is play within his self and do what he was doing at the previous level that’s good enough. You can find somebody to play second base on a everyday level who’s a solid fielder and who can bring a .850 OPS to bear on the game that’s absolutely all you could ask for. Panik doesn’t need to try and be better now that he’s a Major Leaguer he doesn’t need to push himself.

Michael Duca does A’s and Giants commentary for http://www.sportsradioservice each week

Thats Amaury’s News and Commentary: U.S. Men trying to get the mind set not to lose to Germany on Thursday at game’s end

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by Daniel Dullum for Amaury Pi Gonzalez

PHOENIX–The U.S. Men’s team is still alive in this set of matches in Brazil. Who saw this coming with a 2-2 loss and a draw on Sunday night against Portugal. The U.S. is playing remarkably well and generally the U.S. doesn’t qualify for the World Cup to begin with and to see them enjoy this kind of success it’s a shame they lost.

Its a shame they lost the game in extra minutes but their not a favorite to begin with and to make it to that round 16 would be awesome. It’s very exciting especially for generations who have grown up playing soccer in the U.S. even causal fans are paying attention now and a lot more people are familiar with the game and as a result fans are pretty jazzed about what is going on.

Giants are back on track: After losing last Friday night for their sixth consecutive loss San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy remarked saying “that’s baseball that happens all the time. It happens to every team good and bad, your going to go through a stretch where you lose five or six. Just like you can win five or six.”

For Bochy and the Giants clubhouse there was no sense of panic at at all and sure enough Saturday and Sunday the Giants were back on track. They got good starting pitching and it starts there. The key hitting fell into place accordingly.

The one Panic that the Giants don’t seem to mind on their team is rookie Joe Panik who made his big league debut on Sunday with some great defense and his first two hits in the show to take two souvenirs home. Panik has some flashy plays over at second base and if he was a nervous rookie he certainly didn’t act like one. Panik seemed very poised and it energizes a team a little bit when you call somebody up and they come up and get you going and it’s all positive.

Finally as far as pitcher Matt Cain in concerned he will get back on track eventually he had these stretches too where for some reason he can’t seem to get his pitches over the plate and that gets him in trouble and you’ll see him in the second half for the All-Star break straighten out.

NFL Cheerleaders starting to make some noise about getting paid: Cheerleaders in the NFL goes back to the 1970s when the Dallas Cowboys got it started off and for the most part over the years these ladies have taken these jobs knowing that they weren’t going to get paid very much.

These jobs were more for the status, more for getting their modeling or show business career going. Whatever that motivation is, should they be making a little more? Probably, the NFL is like a money printing machine and there is no reason why the cheerleaders can’t be compensated properly.

They make a lot of public appearances aside from games that people don’t know about. They definitely shoud be paid and there is no reason not to.

Daniel Dullum is filling in for Amaury Pi Gonzalez who is taking the day off, Daniel files A’s game reports for http://www.sportsradioservice.com every Thursday

Sharks commentary: It’s a Sharks organizational melt down the likes no one has seen before

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by Larry Leavitt

SAN JOSE–The Shark Tank is owned by the City of San Jose partially and the city is putting $1.4 million into fixing it up this year. I have met many, many, fans and members of the media who come from out of town and their very satisfied with that venue. SAP Center has held up well over the years in fact I had a chance to talk to former Shark Jeff Odgers about it last season and Odgers said he can’t believe how well the building has been maintained.

The number one reason why the Sharks are interested in moving out of SAP Center is they want more seats to get more revenue. Their limited to 17,562 and being limited to 17,562 that’s your limit there is no room. If they want more revenue, the Sharks sell out every game, this is the way to do it.

Levis Stadium and Great America for a new Sharks arena in Santa Clara would be right next door to San Jose but they still would have their TV contract issues that will not go away. The Mission Bay arena in San Francisco will be a concern as the Sharks season will overlap with the Golden State Warriors. You could take out the floor and have ice but there’s a lot of scheduling conflicts.

Seattle would be a phenomenal place to have a hockey team whether the Sharks move there or not a team from somewhere eventually should. Vancouver is the closest hockey team to Seattle and they sell out every single game. The Canadian fans would even drive down to see a game in Seattle.

The Sharks not to mention are in line to get an outdoor game either at AT&T Park or at Levis Stadium for the NHL Winter Classic. I got to think if I was in the NHL through all this termoil and problems would the NHL want to spotlight the Sharks in an outdoor game on national TV?

I’d love to sit down with San Jose Sharks CEO John Tortora who started last year and he came from the NHL and has NHL background experience in the New York Office and he was in the media department there. So Tortora knows a little about the media.

Last season Tortora came to the Sharks and became the new CEO and Tortora has been a very busy and not only is Tortora dealing with the team that lost four straight but to the now Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings he’s got a General Manger Doug Wilson who says he’s going to rebuild the team.

They just signed a couple of their unrestricted free agents in Mike Brown and Alex Stalock and now the story that came out this week about possibly wanting to move the team and also getting rid of their long time TV analyst and fan favorite Drew Remenda a very popular talent. It’s kind of amazing to me that the fan base is upset to begin with the way the team lost being booted out of the playoffs after being up 3-0.

There’s a lot of rumors about trading Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau alot of talk on twitter and social media about yes, no, maybe, go, and now they sign two players one very well received Stalock and Brown and then they fire one of their most favorite talents on TV and then managaement comes out with “you know what we got the shaft on this TV deal.”

If you look at the TV deal it’s $7 million a year which even I would think is pretty good but when you compare it to Toronto or Detroit who are receiving $41 million and it was Philadelphia with $21 million a year. The Sharks TV wise got the shaft and their on the hook for 14 more years with this current contract. It was the Sharks previous owner who negotiated this current deal that agreed upon one season before Tortora got to San Jose.

If you sign a long term contract you need to honor that long term contract in my opinion and if that long term contract is signed by another CEO of the Sharks he was in charge (Greg Jamison) he signed the contract you don’t have a choice you should honor that. Now Tortora is complaining that its not enough. Well it isn’t enough, but that’s the bed that was made and the Sharks will have to sleep in it.

Larry Leavitt does commentary on the NHL for http://www.sportsradioservice.com